Soil Erosion Studies

330 Pages·36.381 MB·English

by  Godone D., Stanchi S. (Ed.)

SOIL EROSION STUDIES
Edited by Danilo Godone and Silvia Stanchi
SOIL EROSION STUDIES

Edited by Danilo Godone and Silvia Stanchi
Soil Erosion Studies
Edited by Danilo Godone and Silvia Stanchi

Published by InTech
Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia

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Image Copyright Jerome Scholler, 2011. Used under license from Shutterstock.com

First published October, 2011
Printed in Croatia

A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com
Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected]

Soil Erosion Studies, Edited by Danilo Godone and Silvia Stanchi
p. cm.
ISBN 978-953-307-710-9

Contents

Preface IX
Part 1 Arid and Semiarid Land Management 1
Chapter 1 Natural Potential for Erosion for Brazilian Territory 3
Alexandre Marco da Silva, Clayton Alcarde Alvares
and Claudia Hitomi Watanabe
Chapter 2 Soil Erosion Processes in Semiarid Areas:
The Importance of Native Vegetation 25
Rebeca Vásquez-Méndez, Eusebio Ventura-Ramos,
Klavdia Oleschko, Luis Hernández-Sandoval
and Miguel Angel Domínguez-Cortázar
Chapter 3 Deforestation / Reforestation in Mediterranean Europe:
The Case of Greece 41
Olga G. Christopoulou
Chapter 4 Soil Erosion Under Different Land Use and
Cover Types in a Marginal Area of Portugal 59
Adélia Nobre Nunes
Chapter 5 Soil Erosion and Conservation Measures
in Semiarid Ecosystems Affected by Wildfires 87
David Badía, Clara Martí and Raquel Charte
Part 2 Experimental Studies and Modeling Applications 111
Chapter 6 Investigation of Effective Factors on Runoff
Generation and Sediment Yield of Loess
Deposits Using Rainfall Simulator 113
S. Feiznia , M. Nohtani, H. Ahmadi and H. Peyrowan
Chapter 7 Plot-Scale Experimental Studies 151
Lúcio Flávio Ferreira Moreira, Flaviane de Oliveira Silva,
Serena Chen, Herbert Tadeu de Almeida Andrade,
José Hilário Tavares da Silva and Antonio Marozzi Righetto
VI Contents

Chapter 8 Impact of Rainfall Microstructure on Erosivity and
Splash Soil Erosion Under Simulated Rainfall 167
Mohamed A. M. Abd Elbasit, Hiroshi Yasuda,
Atte Salmi and Zahoor Ahmad
Chapter 9 Soil Loss-Rainfall Duration Relations as Affected
by Peat Content, Soil Type and Compaction Effort 179
E.I. Ekwue and S.D. Ramoutar
Chapter 10 Soil Erosion and Surface Runoff on Slopes in Mountain
Environment Depending on Application Technique
and Seed Mixture – A Case-Study 193
Wilhelm Graiss and Bernhard Krautzer
Chapter 11 Combined Hydroseeding and Coconet Reinforcement
for Soil Erosion Control 213
Mervin M. Cereno, Fibor J. Tan and Francis Aldrine A. Uy
Chapter 12 SCALES: An Original Model to Diagnose
Soil Erosion Hazard and Assess the Impact
of Climate Change on Its Evolution 227
Patrick Le Gouée, Olivier Cantat, Abdelkrim Bensaid,
Alexis Goulet and Daniel Delahaye
Chapter 13 SATEEC GIS System for Spatiotemporal Analysis
of Soil Erosion and Sediment Yield 253
Kyoung Jae Lim, Youn Shik Park,
Bernard A. Engel and Nam Won Kim
Part 3 Other Applications in Engineering/Geoscience 281
Chapter 14 Internal Erosion Due to Water Flow Through
Earth Dams and Earth Structures 283
Raul Flores-Berrones and Norma Patricia Lopez-Acosta
Chapter 15 Lake Mladotice in the Western Czech Republic
– Sediments as a Geoarchive for Flood Events and
Pre- to Postcommunist Change in Land Use since 1872 307
Achim Schulte, Bohumir Jansky and Julius Česak

Preface

Soil erosion affects a large part of the Earth surface, and it represents one of the most
relevant environmental problems worldwide. Intense land degradation processes that
destroyed civilizations in the past are still going on at present.
Accelerated soil erosion is one of the main soil threats, as the natural balance between
soil formation and loss may be seriously compromised, leading to desertification and
permanent loss of fertility and protective function. Soil erosion is not only related to
agricultural activities and farming practices, but also to land management in general.
In non-agricultural lands (e.g. forests, rangelands etc.) erosion plays a primary role in
landscape evolution and landform development, affecting the availability of nutrients,
the soil physical properties and therefore the vegetation cover. Moreover, erosion may
lead to desertification phenomena interesting as waste areas.
The land management in areas affected by soil erosion is a relevant issue for landscape
and ecosystems preservation. In literature, a wide discussion on erosion assessment
methods, erosion effects and mitigation techniques is available, and the effects of
erosion on both agricultural and non-agricultural land are widely treated. Among the
major problems about soil erosion assessment and mitigation, there is the spatial and
time scale at which erosion occurs.
In this book we collected a series of papers on erosion, not focusing on agronomic
implications, but on a variety of other relevant aspects of the erosion phenomena.
The book is divided into three sections: i) various implications of land management in
arid and semiarid ecosystems; ii) erosion modeling and experimental studies; iii) other
applications (e.g. geoscience, engineering).
In the section on arid and semiarid ecosystems different environments are presented,
from Mediterranean basin (Greece, Spain, Portugal) to Central and South America
(Brazil, Mexico), and different aspects of soil erosion are treated.
Christopoulou examined the effects of deforestation in Greece, due to fire and land
management, indicating some guidelines for forest management, fire prevention and
soil conservation. Wildfires effects are widely discussed in the paper by Badía et al.,
X Preface

focusing on restoration and recovery strategies in the post-fire soil and vegetation
evolution. Nunes treated the relationship between erosion and land cover in marginal
areas in Portugal, suggesting guidelines for land management and erosion prevention.
Vásquez-Méndez et al. examined the role of native vegetation cover and pioneer
species on erosion mitigation and soil protection, observing a favourable effect on
runoff reduction due to the canopy effect. Marco da Silva et al., examined the natural
susceptibility of Brazilian soil to erosion using the rainfall, soil and topography
information of the USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation), obtaining a GIS-based map
for the assessment of the natural potential for erosion, i.e. the intrinsic susceptibility of
a territory to soil loss by water erosion processes.
A wide section of the book focuses on experimental studies and models. Plot scale
experiments are presented together with slope management sustainable techniques
using hydro-seeding techniques and environmental friendly materials.
Le Gouée et al. present a model for the assessment of soil erosion hazard in relation to
climate change scenarios.
A final section deals with other erosion-related issues involving engineering and
building techniques (e.g. earth dams and earth structures), and sedimentary record
analysis for land use change study.
The book covers a wide range of erosion-related themes from a variety of points of
view (assessment, modeling, mitigation, best practices etc.), and represents an
exhaustive review on the causes and effects of accelerated soil erosion that need to be
taken into account in order to effectively monitor and assess erosion phenomena.

Danilo Godone, PhD
Turin University, Faculty of Agriculture, Deiafa Department
NATRISK - Research Centre on Natural Risks in Mountain and Hilly Environments
Grugliasco (TO),
Italy
Silvia Stanchi, PhD
Turin University, Faculty of Agriculture, DiVaPRA Department
NATRISK - Research Centre on Natural Risks in Mountain and Hilly Environments
Grugliasco (TO),
Italy